Saturday, June 13, 2009

Killington and Pico

My wife and I hit the Bucklin trail just before 8:00 a.m. this morning. The first destination was the top of Killington - 3.7 miles and 2500 vertical feet away. The first half of the trail was very moderate and the second half very steep. We hit the summit in about 1:50 and we had beautiful views to the high peaks in every direction.

Here is a photo of my wife on the summit of Killington, with our next peak, Pico, in the background:

From Killington, we headed downhill on a spur trail off the Appalachian Trail and Long Trail, which are the same trail in the southern half of Vermont. We picked up the LT/AT and headed north towards Pico, VT's sixth highest peak. After descending about 500 vertical feet, the trail levelled out and the hiking was very easy for a while. Eventually, we hit the point where the Sherburne Pass Trail diverged from the AT/LT and headed towards Pico. Until about a decade ago, the LT/AT had been on what is now called the Sherburne Pass Trail, but the LT/AT was re-routed due to land ownership considerations and also for safety issues at a highway crossing.

We took the Sherburne Pass trail and then took the spur trail to the exciting Pico summit:

Yep, that's the summit marker and my feet.

From the summit of Pico, it was an easy descent in a stream bed for a while and then the muddy Sherburne Pass trail to our car. All told, we were out for just over 5 hours and the level of effort was pretty easy for me, but less so for my wife, who did a leg workout in the gym last night. We hiked about 10 miles and climbed over 3000 vertical feet - not a really tough day.

It's time to cook dinner and finish packing for Costa Rica. Posts for the next week are likely to be rare or short if I have to do them with the iPhone or Twitter.